reason #21485 to boycott walmart

Yesterday I decided I needed more bread pudding. Yes, more.

I needed vanilla extract, so while I was at Walmart returning movies (redboxxxx!) I popped into the market section and headed straight for the baking aisle.

I walked up the baking aisle, looking left, looking right. I couldn't find it. Surely I was mistaken! It should be in the baking aisle. I walked the length of it again. Still nothing, but where else would they keep it? Looking anywhere else seemed ludicrous. After a third pass, still no vanilla extract.

So I left the aisle, thinking I'd go pick a few more things - you evil bastard, Walmart, I only came in for one thing! and I'm late to pick up my baby! - and come back with a fresh eye. Maybe I was staring right at it, like the mustard in the fridge you stare at and completely miss.

A fourth pass. STILL NO EXTRACT. Of any kind. I would've settled for Almond if they'd had it. I stop an employee who looked friendly enough.

ME: "Hi, can you please tell me where the vanilla extract is? I've looked up and down this aisle four times. It doesn't seem to be here."

FRIENDLY ENOUGH: "Oh, it's here. This is the baking aisle. Let me see."

Friendly Enough walks up and down the aisle a couple times. I lazily scan my eyes because I'm tired of looking for something that isn't there.

FRIENDLY: "Hmm, let me call somebody." She clicks on her walkie-talkie and asks where the vanilla extract is.

ANNOYED VOICE: "It should be in the baking aisle. With, like, the other extracts?" Indeed, ALL the extracts were missing.

FRIENDLY: "It's not. Me and this customer've been looking for it awhile; its not here."

ANNOYED: "Okaaaaaaay...? Let me ask someone else."

Friendly motions for me to follow her down the aisle towards a tiny, lost-looking employee, whom she identifies as a stocker.

FRIENDLY: "Hey, so-n-so! Any idea where the vanilla extract is?"

LOST STOCKER: "It should be in the baking aisle." YES. IT SHOULD BE.

At this point my brain starts to leak out of my ears. I venture out on my own to check out the nearby aisles AGAIN. When I'm good and sure it's not anywhere, I swing back by Friendly to tell her nevermind; she's still looking, has Annoyed on the walkie-talkie, Lost Stocker and Another Idiot Employee has joined the Vanilla Extract Non-Locating Team.

ANNOYED: "It should be there! We don't know. Did y'all check the other aisles?"

ME: "YES. YES, I DID."

FRIENDLY: "Yes, we did." She takes her finger off the talkie and says, without a hint of intended humor, "Maybe there's a vanilla extract shortage." Then my veins popped from the pressure of intense stupidity and I died right there.

ME: "Thanks for your help, but I'm done. I have to go."

I made my way to the closest check-out line. When it was my turn I couldn't help myself.

ME: "You know, I just spent 25 minutes looking for the vanilla extract. Maybe you could mention to your manager that it's not where it should be."

CONFUSED CLERK: "Well...it should be in the baking aisle...?"

ME: "Yes, you'd think so. IT. IS. NOT."

CONFUSED: "Oh...ok...sorry..." Blah blah blaahhhhh. MAD.

So mad, in fact, that it took who-knows-how-many employees and who-knows-how-many-laps and STILL I didn't have the one thing I came for (but still managed to spend $11.42) and was now thirty minutes late to pick up my baby who I hadn't seen in eight hours, I called the number on the receipt.

ME: "Hi. I just spent almost thirty minutes in your store looking for the vanilla extract. In fact, it's the only thing I came for. Since I couldn't find it, even with a handful of your employees helping me, I was wondering if you could tell me where it is? Because I still need it."

IDIOT NUMBER TEN: "It should be in the baking aisle."

ME: "It's not in the baking aisle, OK? IT'S NOT. Can you please ask a manager or something? We didn't spend thirty minutes looking for something that was where it should be!!!"

TEN: "Can you hold? I'll talk to a manager." So I wait several minutes on hold.

IDIOT # EFFING ELEVEN: "Hello? Can I help you?"

ME: "Yeah, uh, did the girl before tell you why I'm calling?"

ELEVEN: "You couldn't find the vanilla extract? It should be in the baking aisle."

At which point Eleven was saved an ass-ripping like no other, because my phone dropped the call.

THE END.